Results tagged ‘ Andres Torres ’

The San Francisco Giants finally admitted some of their mistakes today when they designated both Aaron Rowand and Miguel Tejada for assignment. Looking back at why they should have known better can help us for fantasy purposes, and looking forward to the final month might uncover a fantasy sleeper or two. Perspective is important.

Call Aaron Rowand the more obscene mistake of the two. In 2008, Brian Sabean signed the outfielder to a five-year, $60 million contract after Rowand made some high-profile catches for the Phillies the year before. Sabean was no doubt excited about Rowand’s career-high power surger in 2007, too. Unfortunately, it was fairly obviously an outlier season. Even at that point in his career, Rowand had two seasons with an isolated slugging percentage over .200… and five seasons where it was under .166. He’s always hit more ground balls then fly balls, and he’s never walked at a league average rate. Rowand was sure to be a strong defender in center field, but he wasn’t sure to add much power or patience, and his swinging strike rates suggested he’d always be an average whiffer or worse.

And that’s how it turned out. Rowand never saw even his career-average power in San Francisco (.163 average, .158 Giants-best), he struck out more, never walked, and became a defense-only center fielder pretty quickly. Now all of the center field at-bats will go to Andres Torres and Cody Ross, even if neither provides much offense either. With Torres’ strikeout rate, the best his owners can hope for is a mini power resurgence (three home runs over the final month?) and a .250 batting average, with maybe five steals to boot.

Ross will be the outfield utility player, more likely to play against lefties as his line against them (.918 OPS vs LHP, .718 vs RHP) is much better. Perhaps it will turn into a straight platoon in left field, actually. Baby GiraffeBrandon Belt bats lefty and is the only non-Carlos-Beltran player on the field right now with elite offensive upside. It might be hard to see it right now with his .219 batting average and slightly-better-than-league-average power (.156 ISO), but Belt does have that sort of long-term upside. Right now, he’s striking out 26.2% of the time, which is out of wack with his swinging strike rate (9.7%, only a little worse than 8.5% league average) and his minor league record (22.2% strikeout rate in Triple-A this year). Once he strikes out less and shows more of that power (.218 minor league low in ISO, at Triple-A), he’ll show more of that .280/.375/.500 type of ability that he has. If you are desperate for offense in a deeper league, now is a good time to pick up Belt. Keeper leaguers should be trying to buy low too if their deadline has not passed.

Let’s not forget Miguel Tejada just because his one-year, $6.5 million contract was a smaller mistake. His short stint as the Padres shortstop shouldn’t have erased the fact that two teams had already moved him to third base. Once a player has been moved off of shortstop, it’s very rare for him to return and find any prolonged success. And Tejada’s power has been in a tailspin since his last decent year in Baltimore in 2007. He doesn’t walk, doesn’t have power, doesn’t have a shortstop’s glove any more, has failing health, refused to lay down a bunt when his third base coach called for it, hits way too many ground balls and doesn’t have the speed to take advantage of those grounders any more. Need anyone say more?

His absence will create more opportunities for Mike Fontenot at shortstop. The lefty cajun might enter into a straight platoon with righty Orlando Cabrera there, even. Cabrera has been about as bad as he was in Cleveland for the Giants, and he’s been better against lefties in his career (.739 OPS vs lefties, .697 versus righties). Neither shortstop is very exciting, and in a platoon role they are even less so. Still, deeper-leaguers might want Fontenot since there are more right-handed pitchers in the league.

The Giants tried to erase a couple mistakes, but the players behind them are not incredibly interesting. Only Brandon Belt even approaches mixed league consideration. But with a month left and five games between them and the Diamondbacks, the Giants felt they had to do something. Maybe the biggest thing we can learn from them in fantasy is that this is the time to feel some urgency. Go out there and do something for each of your teams today.

Andres Torres spent 13 years in the minors before finally getting a shot to play every day in the majors this season. His numbers on the farm were decent, but nothing that hinted he’d be any better than a serviceable backup. He showed some promise in 2009, hitting .270/.343/.533. This year, Torres has hit 15 homers, knocked in 61 runs, scored 83, and stolen 23 bases in 549 plate appearances. He’s certainly earned an outfield spot again next season, even though he’ll be 33 with a light pedigree. The guy who came out of nowhere edges the spectacular comeback year of Aubrey Huff as the team’s biggest surprise.

Biggest Bust

Pablo Sandoval was coming off a 25-HR season in 2009 and looked like a good bet to develop as one of the league’s most valuable corner infielders. After all, Kung Fu Panda has an elite ability to make contact with the ball — hardly ever striking out. So what happened in 2010? Sandoval hit only a dozen home runs and his batting average dropped from .330 all the way down to .267. It’s hard to explain his complete absence of power this year except to speculate about his body weight, a hidden injury, or just pure bad luck. It’s also possible that Sandoval enjoyed a career year in 2009 (including a very high .350 BABIP) and that he had little to no shot to repeat that performance.

2011 Keeper Alert

Buster Posey arrived on the scene in late May and quickly established himself as one of baseball’s top catchers. This season, in just 426 plate appearances, Posey has hit 16 HR, knocked in 64, and hit .311. Posey was highly touted coming into the league, but few catching prospects are ever this good, this quickly. Now, he has made a case that he could possibly be the most valuable catcher in baseball next year, especially if Joe Mauer fails to regain his 2009 power stroke. Posey’s value is helped by the fact that he plays nearly every day — another rarity among catchers — and hits high up in San Francisco’s lineup.

2011 Regression Alert

Expect better things from Sandoval next season. He’s still making contact and putting the ball in the air, but a 6.6% HR/FB rate is flukishly low and bound to improve.

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